


Overcast

by raventree



Series: HC Bingo 2014 [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Apathy, Blackouts, Community: hc_bingo, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Oranges, Over Sleeping, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Snow Day, Winter Blues, iffy medical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2209605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raventree/pseuds/raventree





	Overcast

The Winter Soldier is three months ahead of anyone looking for him when the cold drives him indoors. He hated the cold. It makes the arm slower, makes the fingers feel stiff and brittle. It makes him slower. He’s been living rough; staying away from Hydra safe houses, staying away from anywhere Stark has a presence. But three months lead time won’t mean shit if he freezes to death while he sleeps.  
The place he finds is a no-frills, pay-by-the-week; the lobby full of parolees and the recently discharged. Mostly men, but a few women too. The receptionist has bubblegum pink hair and, he suspects, more metal in her than he does. But she smiles and is polite and doesn’t seem to mind that he pays with crumpled, faded notes, none of them larger than a single twenty. He hopes he won’t have to kill her.  
Muscle memory pushes him through the last few hours of daylight. The apartment is as small as he’d expected, with a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchenette. There were only three entry points, if he counted the second window in the bathroom. He secures them as best he can. The guns he taken from the last hitman unlucky enough to find him are cleaned, reloaded and hidden away, in easy to reach places. He showers, more because he should, than because he wants to. The water is hot and he feels warm from the inside out for the first time in months. Even the arm feels good. He stays until the water begins to cool. The bed is softer than he’s used to and he falls in to it, barely pulling the quilt over him before his eyes close.  
He wakes the next morning still tired. He stares at the ceiling for a bit, rolls over and goes back to sleep. In the afternoon, his bladder screams at him. He considers the shower but goes back to bed instead.   
The sun is shining on the second day. He goes down to the lobby. The bubblegum girl is there again. She directs him to a thrift store a block over. He finds a thick winter coat, new gloves and socks with the tags still attached. It’s not much, but it’s enough. There are oranges in the window of the corner store on his way back. They look bright and inviting in the now overcast day. He buys four on impulse and refills some of his supplies while he’s there. His dinner is cold ravioli out of the can before going back to bed.   
The next day heat all four oranges sitting up in bed, licking the juice from his fingers. He lets the shower run cold again. Sometimes the sun comes out, sometimes, the clouds cover the whole sky. He turns on the clock radio and listens for news about Hydra or SHEILD or the Avengers. He wakes up as the sun turns the clouds purple and isn’t sure when he fell asleep or if it’s the same day or not. He feels like it should bother him more, but isn’t particularly worried when it doesn’t.   
It snows. The morning is barely brighter than the night and the radio talks about black ice and snow days. He thinks he should turn it off, so he can hear people in the hallway, but he doesn’t. He stays in bed that day and the next.  
Eventually, hunger gets him out of bed. Half the groceries disappear before lunch. He dresses and goes down to the corner store. He buys more oranges and noodle cups and warm doughnuts. He eats all the doughnuts on the way back. The snow is dirty slush beneath his feet. He feels tired again, like the supply trip was a three week hike through the Amazon. His sleep is disturbed by dreams of falling.   
The power goes out sometime overnight. The clock radio blinks at him in the darkness. The clouds are thick and heavy and seem to weigh on him, trapping him in the room, in the bed. Eventually he gets up. The shower is still hot, but the walls feel close. He eats the noodles, one cup after another, until they are all gone. He checks the money he has left and thinks about paying for another week. The lobby seems far away.   
The bubblegum girl knocks on the door midmorning. He yells something at her. It might have been English. The chain on the door keeps it from opening too wide. He knows this should worry him, that he should do something. He rolls over and stares at the wall until he falls asleep. When the men come, he lets them drag him out of bed. He’s too tired to fight and can’t think of why he should.

 

“Officially, we’re still waiting on the blood tests and Mr Stark wants to scan the arm once we have Mr Barnes stable. Unofficially… some form of depression. He described a number of fairly common symptoms and there doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong. I’m going to start him on a course of light therapy until the blood results come back.”  
“Light therapy? You think it’s S.A.D.?” Sam sounded interested.   
“I don’t know what that means?” Steve just seemed confused. Sam let the doctor answer.  
“Seasonal Affective Disorder. A reoccurring depression first studied in the Forties. It’s linked to the decrease in sunlight. You might have known it as the winter blues. Most sufferers respond well to light therapy. Unfortunately, official diagnosis can take years; as I said, it has to be reoccurring.”  
Steve gave a rough bark of laughter.   
“He hated winter. Before, I mean. I always had to drag him out of bed so he’d get to work on time. Thought he just hated the cold, but even when we could afford to crank up the heat, he just wanted to sleep. Ate a lot too, like he was going to hibernate. His Ma used to say he was half bear.” Steve saw the look on Sam’s face. “What?”  
“Nothing, just… the Winter Soldier; who hates winter? Who just wants to sleep until the sun comes out?” Steve gave a half-hearted smile.   
“Bucky never was too big on doing as he was told.”


End file.
